


Standard Operating Procedure

by Asimiento



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 16:57:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11166126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asimiento/pseuds/Asimiento
Summary: Rinse and repeat, in weekly intervals. They’ve gone through about three months of the routine. It hasn’t failed. It won’t fail. It can't fail.





	Standard Operating Procedure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darkcomedylateshow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkcomedylateshow/gifts).



A dark garage.

The soft rustling of fabric.

Metal creaking ever so slightly.

Heavy yet hitched breaths.

A zip. A groan. Teeth clacking.

“Ow,” someone says.

“Sorry,” someone else yelps. “ _Sorry_ ,” he repeats, quietly now, barely a whisper. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

A soft laugh.

“Richard, it’s okay. I’m sure nobody heard.”

Silence.

“How are you sure?” A stilted whine.

A reassuring shush. “We’ve been here in the middle of the day, and no one heard us then.”

A long pause.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

A wet sound.

Long, slow breaths. Metal creaking. Rustling fabric. The sound of bodies shifting.

“Keep going. God, keep going.” Soundless.

Heavy breaths again. Fabric and metal flopping onto concrete.

A stifled moan, hoarse and strained. It almost sounds like suffocating.

“Richard you don’t have to—”

“I know, I know. It's just…” Quietly. “You never know.” So, so quietly.

 

* * *

 

The S.O.P. is simple. They’ll sneak around after hours, in Richard’s room, or in the garage, or in the middle of the server space. Painfully vigilant, effortfully quiet, and afterwards exceptionally fastidious. No trace left, like nothing ever happened. Jared will book a Lyft back to his condo, because Erlich is an early riser and if Jared pretends he’s suddenly been coming to the hacker hostel earlier than five in the morning, that’ll be too strange. Too strange, admittedly, even by his standards. Richard will tell him to text when he gets home, so every one or two or so, he’ll be on his doorstep, texting that he’s just gotten back. Richard will reply _see you later; good night_. He’ll go to bed. Rinse and repeat, in weekly intervals.

That’s the routine. They’ve gone through about three months of the routine. It hasn’t failed. It won’t fail. It can't fail.

Except tonight, there's a subtle break in the step-by-step. Nothing too different. Richard walks him to the door, as usual. The common area is empty, but he still feels a thrill when he's pulled into a kiss. It's brief and sweet and almost feels like part of another version of the routine. The version where they aren't sneaking around and seeing each other is completely fine and not at all a workplace code violation. One where, each time Richard leaves, he gets to do the same thing in the same space in the middle of the day, and it's fine and nobody's bothered by it.

“Safe trip,” Richard says, low and sleepy.

On the way home, Jared imagines the routine in the ideal. Less method, more habit. The one where they're openly affectionate. The one where there isn't a cap on permissible modes of expression. Maybe even if it’s just, instead of “ _good luck_ ,” he’ll be so bold as to say, “ _good luck, dear,”_ instead. The one where they're actually going out in public, holding hands, watching a movie. The one where all they have to worry about is figuring each other out, and not whether they’ve woken anybody up after knocking too loudly against the racks and racks of dead server space. A world where they can relax into softness. A somewhat unseemly sincerity.

He unlocks the front door and flicks the lights open. What stares back is an empty sixty square-meter space that, apart from the standard trappings that living spaces are expected to contain, feels less of a home and more of a maintenance chamber. More like one of the plastic-nibbed Lego houses he used to stack and stack in one of the better foster homes. 

He’d imagine his technicolored dream life into the lego houses. Maybe if he thought hard enough, they’d be real, too.

Richard’s red hoodie, draped over a seat by the work desk. Tolkien and Heinlein and Asimov slotted into the bookshelf, suddenly rearranged alphabetically by author, not by genre or topic because some genres tend to bleed into each other. Art on the walls. Richard on the couch, socked feet up, waving the remote, asking him if he’s up for a movie night or if he’d be interested in a nature documentary.

Jared shakes his head and remembers he has a text to send. He pulls out his phone.

 

_just got home_ _:-)_ ✓✓

_That’s good. Thanks for letting me know._ ✓✓

_good night, sleep well_ ✓✓

_You too. See you later. Night._

 

**Drafts**

_so I was thinking, there’s a lot of space here. do you want to_ _move in with me?_

 

So what if they’ve practically lived together in the hacker hostel for a little over a year? They’ve only been seeing each other a few months, only ever gone out on a few dates. If they move in together, they’ll have to come up with some believable explanation.

It’s too soon is the point. This isn’t going to be another thing where he focuses too hard on the maximax payoff and goes all-in without considering the minimax regret of all possible eventualities.

The routine hasn't failed. Jared thinks better of it and calls it a night.

He dreams an unusually pleasant dream. The sky is dark but there’s a shimmer overhead. Somehow, a weight to the night air. He takes Richard’s hand and starts humming a slow tune close to his ear. They start slow-dancing on a rooftop.The lights on the city dust the horizon with a fiery glow, the sound of a polyphonic chorus of human activity below, like an ocean pulled along a soft breeze.

 

* * *

 

“Richard, your sense of humor’s gone to the dogs,” Erlich sighs.

Richard stops laughing at Jared’s small joke. He squints at Dinesh and Gilfoyle and their matching frowns. They shrug and turn their attention back to their respective screens.

Jared only blinks, wide-eyed but unfazed.

Richard stretches a hand under the table, to maybe give a light tap at Jared’s knee. He reaches, slowly, slowly…

“Not that your sense of humor was ever commendable in the slightest,” Gilfoyle adds belatedly, swinging his chair to face the both of them. “So I guess no change.”

Richard's hand hovers where it is. He realizes their chairs are a little too close, almost cramped, so he slides his seat away.

The day almost passes without a hitch, until he escorts Jared to the door at around eight.

“After you, milord.”

They stop, door awkwardly ajar.

“What did you just call OJ?” Gilfoyle says.

“Uh, what?”

“Milord…” Dinesh repeats, slowly. “Why do I feel like I’m getting deja vu?”

“I know what you mean,” Gilfoyle answers.

They lean back on their chairs to consider the pair standing by the door. Richard makes an aborted attempt at damage control, opening his mouth to speak only to stutter out nothing.

“You speak like you in the renaissance fair,” Jian-Yang says. “You are a nerd.”

“Y’know, renaissance fair is more of a geek thing,” Richard responds, half nervous subject-shifting, half compulsion for pedantry. “A nerd is more of a slur for academics.”

“Looks like the Slack D&D sessions are bleeding into the real world,” Jared chirps, already halfway out the door.

“Yup, it’s that.” Richard sputters a little too quickly. He pushes Jared out the door. The door swings shut.

“There’s definitely something weird going on, but I don’t really care enough to find out,” Dinesh comments. Gilfoyle shrugs and turns back to his computer.

“You are a nerd. And a geek. And a dweeb. Dweeb is nerd and geek, combined. That’s what white witch call you.” Jian-Yang says, walking away.

 

* * *

 

Jared starts thinking too much about the maximax payoff version of events. Not that fanciful thoughts have ever translated into anything obstructive or distracting. Just inwardly consuming, but manageable. Like a mild irritation he just has to ignore.

One day, they take their lunch in the kitchen a few hours after everyone else. He feels soft sneakers bumping the toe of his loafers.

Richard smiles at him from across the table. A smile that’s partly  _I’m very happy right now, at this very moment_. A smile that’s mostly _we have a secret and I’m a little proud about that._

He smiles back and continues to talk about an afternoon babysitting Gloria’s grandkids. Imitating their soft voices and gasps of awe at the sight of birds perched at the park.

Jared notices Richard’s eyes darting away every few minutes, looking over his shoulder, cautiously checking the view across the kitchen. He wonders if it would be too forward to invite him to maybe come along one day and babysit with him. Just so they can be elsewhere. He wonders if Richard even likes kids.

“Maybe one day I’ll join you,” Richard says.

Under the table, their feet bump.

Jared leans over, ready to make his well-practiced proposition.

_You could move in with me. We could be doing this everyday. We could make something up. Or, even better: it won’t have to be a secret. I’m not embarrassed. You’ll get there, too._

“Maybe. One day," Richard repeats, a little distantly.

Jared sighs.

* * *

Some days, cautious breaks sneak into the routine. They tiptoe into the kitchen parched, in their undershirts and boxers. Richard opens the fridge slowly. Pours the water into two glasses as soundlessly as possible. They drink in silence. Richard leans back on the counter and considers the empty space. How it almost feels natural. The slight thrill of sneaking around, suddenly at odds with the comfort of feeling at ease.

He backs Jared into the counter and kisses him. Cool tiles against his thighs. Warm hands sliding up the back of his neck and through his hair. Something about it feels normal. Satisfying. And yet there’s the strange rush that comes with knowing they’re getting away with something. Whatever this is they’ve been getting away with.

“God, I could get used to this,” he sighs.

They look around. The hostel almost seems gentle in its silence, trapped in the soft blue of midmorning. Almost as if they had the house all to themselves.

“I know what you mean,” Jared answers.

Richard reaches over and links their fingers together. It feels foreign yet familiar. He realizes they’d never actually done this, and he’s still getting used to it. Sweetness doesn’t exactly come naturally to him. But he’s always wanted to try.

“I wanna get used to this, too.” He holds their linked hands up, gives a light squeeze.

“We’ll get there,” Jared answers, reassuring as usual.

Then, Richard lets go and walks across the kitchen, fidgeting as he speaks.

“It’s just that… sorry, I don’t know what my deal is. Sometimes I think it’s because, well, you know how everyone can be. But who the fuck gives a shit, right?”

Jared nods and walks over, to where Richard is scraping his nails over the table.

“I don’t mind,” he whispers.

“It has to bother you.” The scraping stops. “Maybe a little bit.”

“Not in the slightest.”

Richard only raises an eyebrow, disbelieving.

“I can be very patient.”

 

* * *

 

“Always knew this guy fucks, but I didn’t know you two were,” Russ Hanneman quips, pointing to the two of them and gesturing vaguely.

“I have no idea what you mean,” Richard stammers. “And even if I did, we’re getting off-topic here.”

“But I called it, when I said you were really into dudes.” Finger guns. Goddamn it.

“Russ, that was just a metaphor,” Richard utters through his teeth.

Jared straightens up his posture. “I’m sorry, how did you have that conversation?”

Richard groans. “We’re really getting off-topic now.”

Over his whinging, Russ leans back and says, “I’ve been giving Richard some solid life advice about how he’s always been seeing women but he’s always wanted to bang dudes.”

“Yes, as a metaphor for the situation I was in.”

“Oh, I get it. It’s a metaphor for dissatisfaction over the circumstances you’ve chosen to trap yourself into.”

“See, Richard, your boyfriend gets it.”

“I swear to god…”

Russ shrugs. “Eh, but you haven’t denied it.”

Richard looks at Jared, who only smiles and nods. He has no idea what that means.

He looks at Russ, slouched and looking slightly annoyed. He sighs in exasperation.

“Fine!” Richard says, raising his hands. “We’ve been seeing each other.”

“See, that wasn’t so bad. I just wanted to be proven right. That’s actually how my grandfather came out, you know when people come out later in life there’s a lot more reluctance and you really gotta…” He makes another vague, exuberant gesture.

Richard sighs in relief. “You’re right. That wasn’t so bad.”

 

* * *

 

They spend the night at Jared’s condo, relaxing into a version of the routine that’s less fraught and hyperaware, more organic and a little ungainly. Somewhere in the middle of watching Swing Time, they start fumbling around in the couch, Jared awkwardly on top and bumping his head on the armrests. They laugh.

They laugh at the silliness of trying to do whatever it is they’ve always wanted to do in a more private space. The couch doesn’t fit them, the table is uncomfortable, the shower just gets water in their eyes.

They sink into bed, too exhausted to try anything else. Jared considers the bareness of the space before them and starts filling in the details. The hoodie on the chair and the neatly sorted books and the odd movie poster choices.

“Move in with me,” he says. And Richard laughs.

 

* * *

 

The funny thing is, it was all so simple.

“We’re moving in together,” Richard says, mustering up all the confidence he can manage, and only slightly stuttering.

A shrug from Gilfoyle, a dry jeer from Jian-Yang, a half-sedate half-enthused “oh, cool,” from Bighead, an unimpressed “yeah, not like we all didn’t know,” from Dinesh, exuberant support from Erlich.

And the routine bleeds into habits into routines. Mornings in comfortable silence, evenings lush with languor. Jared makes breakfast, Richard makes coffee. They take turns driving, and all the other maintenance work that comes with their shared compact living space. They take turns on chores, to the remote, to picking dates—restaurants to try or films to see. They take turns deciding if they’ll take a weekend to spend long walks along at the park or stay in and do nothing. Maybe clean up a little. Maybe something new, like sharing the tub.

One evening, Jared puts on music in the living room, and Richard comes out of the bathroom, looking mildly perplexed. The music is playing on tinny laptop speakers, but in the smallness of the space, the synths seem to rise and snake up all around them. A marimba clinks in a syncopated rhythm.

“Thompson Twins?” Richard asks.

Jared reaches a hand out to Richard. “May I have this dance?”

“I, uh… I don’t know how to,” Richard responds, reluctantly taking the hand hovering in front of him.

“That’s okay; neither do I,” Jared answers, pulling them closer together. “We can make it up as we go along.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here's the song at the end.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9694K85Xc8) There's zero canon evidence, but I'm convinced that Jared is into 80's new romantics / new wave.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on tumblr last year, as a prompt fill for [bachmannsearningsoverride](bachmannsearningsoverride.tumblr.com) from a list of [100 Ways to Say I Love You.](http://p0ck3tf0x.tumblr.com/post/98502010026/one-hundred-ways-to-say-i-love-you) The tumblr page is now defunct. Some bits from the ongoing season have been added.


End file.
